Cannes 2010: Many stars, but only one legend

Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie at the Inglourious Basterds premiere at the Cannes film festival last year

This year's Cannes will begin and end in ways to make us meditate on the themes of property and theft. Ridley Scott's new Robin Hood film will launch the festival with what we all hope will be a beefy and resounding twang; the closing film will be Oliver Stone's Wall Street 2.

Both are out of competition, emphasising the Cannes habit of showcasing Hollywood movies in this relaxingly non-judgmental way. Glitzy American pictures will bring in the star-names and red-carpet glamour, but my first recognition has to go Stephen Frears's Tamara Drewe based on a graphic novel by Posy Simmonds.

Mike Leigh is a great British auteur and former Palme D'Or winner, back with a new ensemble drama, Another Year, starring Lesley Manville and Jim Broadbent. Leigh's relationship with Cannes has been chequered. The festival famously turned down his 2005 film Vera Drake – Leigh took it to Venice where he won the Golden Lion and thumbed his nose at the French.

There is a strong Asian and Russian presence with films from Im Sang-soo, Lee Chang-dong and Nikita Mikhalkov – the latter returns with Burnt By The Sun 2, a follow-up to his most popular film.

The French presence looks interestingly low-key. Veteran film-maker Bertrand Tavernier presents his period costume drama The Princess of Montpensier, and the actor and recent Bond villain Mathieu Amalric makes his directorial debut (in the main competition, no less) with Tournée, about American burlesque girls on tour in France.

Abbas Kiarostami is the Iranian director with impregnable status and esteem and respect will be paid to his new film Certified Copy starring Juliette Binoche, his first made outside Iran.

Perhaps my favourite director in this year's lineup is the visionary Thai artist and film-maker Apichatpong "Joe" Weerasethakul who returns with his intriguing sounding Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives. Mexican director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritureturns with another drama of chance encounters and fate: Biutiful, starring Javier Bardem.

There is no doubt who is the biggest name. Fifty years after his first movie (Breathless, in 1960), the great man is back to put in a distinctively grizzled and inscrutable appearance. Jean-Luc Godard comes to Cannes in the Un Certain Regard sidebar, with a contribution to the portmanteau film Socialism. It will be a hot ticket. And the legendary Portuguese director, Manoel De Oliveira, at 101 years old, has made a new film, The Strange Case of Angelica.

A list with big names and well-established egos: as ever, the fascination is in seeing who will triumph and which upstaged by the always unguessable tide of younger talent.

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